Windows has become one of the my favorite company sitting alongside with Apple. They still build Windows and sell their office suites, but there are many things they have changed.

Windows Categorization

They don’t have Windows Home, Windows Home Premium, and those “WTF” type of Windows anymore. Instead, they build a new lineup of Windows by assigning flower name to them. Most notable for their Windows Cherry Blossom, Windows Lily,and Windows Rose. I don’t know if it’s related to the fact that Leopard and Tiger don’t eat flowers. But it sounds good.

You might wonder how the name will affect product category. All of them are same in term of features, but the names are made to help users differentiate the PC specification. PC Manufacturers need to follow some rules set by Microsoft if they intend to use Windows in their PC.

Windows Lily can only be installed for a notebook that has the 13” wide screen, minimum 7 hours battery lifetime, and the maximum weight of 5.0 pounds, height of 1.1 inches, and width of 13 inches. Aside from model design, Microsoft also requires it to have minimum memory, processor, and graphic cards that change every years. So every manufacturers must fulfill the requirements in order to use Windows Lily for their notebooks.

There are also other versions of Windows such as Windows Cherry Blossom or Windows Ixora specifically for other type of PC/notebooks. But I think you get the idea how Microsoft categorize their Windows OS.

Microsoft New Rules & Guidelines

At first, some manufacturers switch to Linux and uBuntu. But the others stick with Microsoft because of its market share and come up with more beautiful design for their notebook to match the specifications set by Microsoft. It seems that Microsoft also offer shared profit to enforce this practice.

Another rules that the manufactures must agree is not to install any softwares or configure the Windows without user’s permission. Manufactures must include their drivers files in the thumbdrive or users can install it the first time they launch Windows.

User Experience

The Windows itself is revamped from zero, now every software installed match the Windows UI itself. Microsoft also published the interface guideline on how to design with Metro concept. If you think the OS allows you to install the software from its predecessor, Windows 8, then you’re wrong. It still allows you to open the some documents supported in Windows 8, but now you can simply install new app by choosing “Add to Application List”.

Every software has the “Storage” in their option where you can view your stored content. This is where your app store all the files, caches, and configurations. By default, it only show you the content you’ve saved, excluding caches. You can still open and edit the traditional file types such as jpg, bmp here.

If you try to remove a software, it’ll offer an option for to save your settings and files. It also list all the user’s storage tied to the app so you can remove all things at once if there are several users in one computer.

You can still install Windows on your custom configured PC if you can build a compatible PC. But the overall experience is much better compared to your times.

— Man From Future

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